Inspector French and the Box Office Murders. Freeman Crofts Wills
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blonde of about five-and-twenty, with a good manner and something of a presence. Well but plainly dressed in some light summery material, she looked what she evidently was, an ordinary, pleasant, healthy young woman of the lower middle classes. French put her down as a typist or shopgirl or perhaps a bookkeeper in some small establishment. In one point only did she seem abnormal. She was evidently acutely nervous. There was panic in her eyes, tiny drops of perspiration stood on her face, and the hand in which she grasped her vanity bag trembled visibly.
‘Good morning, Miss Darke,’ said French, rising as she entered and pulling forward a chair. ‘Won’t you sit down?’ He gave her a keen glance and went on: ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me for two or three minutes I’ll be quite at your service.’
He busied himself again with his papers. If her nervousness were due to her surroundings she must be allowed time to pull herself together.
‘Ready at last,’ he went on with his pleasant smile. ‘Just take your time and tell me your trouble in your own way and it’ll be a strange thing if between us all we’ll not be able to help you out.’
The girl looked at him gratefully and with some surprise. Evidently she had expected a different kind of reception. French noted the glance with satisfaction. To gain the confidence of those with whom he had to deal was his invariable aim, not only because he valued pleasant and friendly relations for their own sake, but because he felt that in such an atmosphere he was likely to get more valuable details than if his informant was frightened or distrustful.
‘So you know Mr Arrowsmith?’ he prompted, as she seemed to have a difficulty in starting. ‘A good sort, isn’t he?’
‘He seems so indeed, Mr French,’ she answered with a suggestion of Lancashire in her accent. ‘But I really can’t say that I know him. I met him this morning for the first time.’
‘How was that? Did you go to consult him?’
‘Not exactly: that is, it was through Miss Cox, Miss Jennie Cox, his typist. She is my special friend at the boarding house we live at. She told him about me without asking my leave. He said he would hear my story and then she came back to the boarding house and persuaded me to go and tell it to him.’
‘She thought you were in some difficulty and wanted to do you a good turn?’
‘It was more than that, Mr French. She knew all about my difficulty, for I had told her. But she believed I was in danger and thought somebody should be told about it.’
‘In danger? In danger of what?’
The girl shivered.
‘Of my life, Mr French,’ she said in a low tone.
French looked at her more keenly. In spite of this surprising reply there was nothing melodramatic in her manner. But he now saw that her emotion was more than mere nervousness. She was in point of fact in a state of acute terror. Whatever this danger might be, it was clear that she was fully convinced of its reality and imminence.
‘But what are you afraid may happen to you?’ he persisted.
Again she shivered. ‘I may be murdered,’ she declared and her voice dropped to a whisper.
‘Oh, come now, my dear young lady, people are not murdered in an offhand way like that! Surely you are mistaken? Tell me all about it.’ His voice was kind, though slightly testy.
She made an obvious effort for composure.
‘It was Eileen Tucker. She was my best friend. They said she committed suicide. But she didn’t, Mr French! I’m certain she never did. She was murdered! As sure as we’re here, she was murdered! And I may be too!’ In spite of her evident efforts for self-control, the girl’s voice got shrill and she began jerking about in her chair.
‘There now,’ French said soothingly. ‘Pull yourself together. You’re quite safe here at all events. Now don’t be in a hurry or we’ll get mixed up. Take your own time and tell me everything from the beginning. Start with yourself. Your name is Thurza Darke. Very good now; where do you live?’ He took out his notebook and prepared to write.
His quiet, methodical manner steadied the girl and she answered more calmly.
‘At 17 Orlando Street, Clapham. It’s a boarding house kept by a Mrs Peters.’
‘You’re not a Londoner?’
‘No; I come from Birkenhead. But my parents are dead and I have been on my own for years.’
‘Quite. You are in some job?’
‘I’m in charge of one of the box offices at the Milan Cinema in Oxford Street.’
‘I see. And your friend, Miss Jennie Cox, who also lives at Mrs Peter’s boarding house, is typist to Mr Arrowsmith. I think I’ve got that straight. Now you mentioned another young lady—at least I presume she was a young lady—a Miss Eileen Tucker. Who was she?’
‘She was in one of the box offices at the Hammersmith Cinema.’
‘Same kind of job as your own?’
‘Yes. I met her at an evening class in arithmetic that we were both attending and we made friends. We were both bad at figures and we found it came against us at our work.’
French nodded. The name, Eileen Tucker, touched a chord of memory, though he could not remember where he had heard it. He picked up his desk telephone.
‘Bring me any papers we have relative to the suicide of a girl called Eileen Tucker.’
In a few moments a file was before him. A glance through it brought the case back to him. It was summarised in a cutting from the Mid-Country Gazette of the 10th January of that year. It read:
‘TRAGIC DEATH OF A YOUNG GIRL.
‘Dr J. S. Jordan, deputy coroner for South Eastern Surrey, held an inquest at the Crown Inn, Caterham, yesterday morning, on the body of a young girl which was found in a quarry hole about a mile from the town and not far from the road to Redhill. The discovery was made by a labourer named Thomas Binks, who was taking a short cut across the country to his work. Binks reported the affair to the police and Sergeant Knowles immediately visited the scene and had the body conveyed to the town. The remains were those of a girl of about twenty-five, and were clothed in a brown cloth coat with fur at the collar and cuffs, a brown skirt and jumper and beige shoes and stockings. A brown felt hat lay in the water a few feet away and in the right hand was clasped a vanity bag, containing a cigarette case and holder, some loose coins and a letter. This last was practically illegible from the water, but enough could be made out to show that it was from a man of undecipherable name, breaking off an illicit relation as he was going to be married. Dr Adam Moody, Caterham, in giving evidence stated that death had occurred from drowning, that there were no marks of violence, and that the body had probably been in the water for two or three days. At first the identity of the deceased was a mystery, but Sergeant Knowles handled the affair with his usual skill and eventually discovered that she was a Miss Eileen Tucker, an employee in the box office of the Hammersmith Cinema in London. She seemed to have been alone in the world, having lived in a boarding house and no relatives being discoverable. After considering the evidence, the jury, with Mr John Wells as foreman, brought in a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind.’
‘A sad case,’ said French sympathetically when he had finished the paragraph. ‘I see that the jury brought in a verdict of suicide, but you think the poor young lady was murdered? Now, just tell me why you think so.’
‘I know it! I’m sure of it! She wasn’t the kind of girl to commit suicide.’
‘That may be, but you’ve surely something more definite to go on than that?’
‘No proof, but I’m as certain of it as if I had been there. But what she told me about the man shows it wasn’t what they said.’
‘I don’t quite follow you. What did she tell you?’
‘She was in trouble through some man, but not